Category Archives: Web Traffic

What Is Even Better Than Free Google Ads?

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I bet you have already seen some of the latest marketing campaigns for ebooks that promise to expose a massive loophole that enables you to get free Google ads. Well, don’t reach for your credit card just yet. I’ll tell you why. I’m about to expose a ‘loophole in the loophole’. And then I’ll reveal to you something even better.

Are you ready? Here goes, then. Some of these new ebooks promise to expose a loophole that will give you free Google ads. Then, the technique they reveal is not really a loophole at all. And it’s not really free ads either. Rather, they show you how to earn a bit of revenue from the visitors sent from your Google ads, and they explain that this revenue covers the cost of the ads so you are getting them effectively ‘for free’. Neat, maybe. A loophole? Definitely not. And is it really original? Hardly.

You only have to do a search on the phrase “AdSense Arbitrage” to see many other examples of people recuperating pay-per-click advertising costs. Various techniques have been around for some time. Google has cracked down on webmasters using arbitrage, however, and closed down a bunch of their AdSense accounts.

So much for loopholes. If there really was an amazing loophole that Google might have missed, they’d probably be buying their own copy of the ebook today and closing the loophole tomorrow. So instead of spending your hard-earned dollars on ebooks touting questionable techniques, you would be far better to put some time into employing some proven mainstream techniques of traffic building.  

I promised you something even better than the so-called free ads. Now, to be better I suggest that it will need to be absolutely free, easy to get started, and able to drive large amounts of traffic to your web site.

Article marketing is a technique that meets all of these criteria. ‘Ah-ha’, I hear you cry, “That’s not such an original concept”. Well, guess what? You don’t necessarily need something original when you can use a technique that has been proven, time and time again, and is still working well today. Let’s examine how well it meets the criteria above.

Is it Easy to Get Started in Article Marketing?

Yes. Article marketing involves writing articles and making them available for webmasters and editors to publish. You submit your articles at article directories such as EzineArticles and IdeaMarketers and this allows anyone to publish your article without any fee to you, the author, provided they include your ‘Author Resource Box’ including your link at the end of the article.

To get closely targeted visitors using article marketing you should write articles on topics closely related to your web site.  

You can get started right now. It takes just a few minutes to sign up for an author account at EzineArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com .

Is Article Marketing Completely Free?

Yes. Article marketing is free. It will only cost you some time. It takes time to write articles and it takes time to submit them to article directories, but apart from that investment of your time, it is absolutely free. 

If you want to save your time it will be worthwhile to invest in some article submitting software that will automate sending articles to multiple article directories. But that is entirely optional and I suggest you try doing it manually first o check that article marketing suits you.

Can Article Marketing Drive Large Amounts of Traffic to Your Site?

Absolutely. Here’s a real example. A couple of weeks ago I submitted a particular article to a bunch of article directories. I deliberately chose a precise phrase for the title which returned zero results at Google, so I could measure accurately what happened. Less than two weeks later there are over 700 web page results at Google, referencing my article title. And traffic has begun to flow in to my site from those web pages.

Another example, this time from an article marketer I know. She recently conducted an article marketing experiment, submitting a new article to 25 article directories every day for a month. Her web site revenue doubled within four weeks.

Article marketing might not be mysterious. It’s definitely not a big secret. But it does work. If you are looking for a way to drive large amounts of traffic to your web site at no cost, that is it.

10 Remarkably Effective Traffic Building Techniques (Part 3 of 3)

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by Daniel Moro

(continued from the previous page…)

8. Solo Mailings to Other Lists

This technique takes classified advertising to a new level. When you send a solo mailing to the subscribers of a closely related newsletter, you will receive highly targeted traffic.

A solo mailing or solo advertisement is a special mailing to the subscribers containing only your message. Many newsletters will allow you to send a solo mailing to their subscribers and they will usually charge a premium compared with paying for regular classified advertising in their newsletter.

It can be worth every cent. One of the weaknesses of regular classified advertising is in just how few of the subscribers actually read far enough to see your ad let alone click through your ad. For a typical email newsletter only 25-30% of subscribers will open the email. And depending upon the ad position perhaps only 5% of those will read so far as your classified advertisement and take action.

When you send a solo mailing you’ll be more likely to have 30% of people opening the email containing your message and therefore a much higher overall response rate.

If you already have good traffic numbers you can probably barter for a solo mailing exchange. If your own subscriber base is much smaller than the one you want to mail to, offer the owner 2 to 3 solo mailings to your list in return for one solo mailing to theirs.

Read more on Advertising…

9. Affiliate Programs

Another good way to build your mailing list and traffic is to operate an affiliate program. The idea with an affiliate program is that affiliates sign up to help you in promoting your web site, product or service. Affiliates then send a stream of traffic to your web site. They do this using a customized link that allows you to identify which affiliate referred any visitor.

Whenever a visitor sent by an affiliate purchases something at your site, the affiliate earns a commission. The affiliate benefits. You benefit. And you are ‘gearing’ up with thousands of affiliates promoting your site and sharing the advertising expenditure. This will save you time and money.

Read more on Affiliate Marketing…

10. Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are all about community. They are web sites designed typically for members to create and post their own content, often in the form of profile pages, with the purpose of communicating with one another.

Some examples of popular social networking sites include MySpace, Blogger, and Classmates. There are also a bunch of social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit. And don’t forget the likes of YouTube.

Social networking sites are seeing remarkable growth and marketers are paying attention. Nielsen reported in 2006 that the top ten social networking sites experienced a 47% growth over the previous 12 months. And a new JupiterResearch report reveals as many as 48 percent of brand marketers will deploy marketing on social networking channels in 2007.

Emily Riley of JupiterResearch was quoted as saying, “30 percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers’ opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only 10 percent trust an advertisement.”

So how can you build traffic with social networks? You don’t necessarily have to purchase advertising on their network. Start by thinking creatively. Perhaps even a little outside the box. Do you have a hilarious or creative video clip you could post to YouTube? Could you write a absolutely hot article and get thousands of users voting for it on Digg or Reddit? Could you build a blog with a huge following of readers?

Read more on Social Networking…

This wraps up ten remarkably effectively traffic building techniques, from search engines to pay per click advertising, to article marketing, and more. Now take action. Go back over this article and identify those techniques which are most likely to increase your traffic, starting today.

10 Remarkably Effective Traffic Building Techniques (Part 2 of 3)

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by Daniel Moro
(continued from the previous page…)

4. Free Ebooks

Ebooks are books that are made available in an electronic format. The beauty of ebooks is they cost virtually nothing to produce and distribute. Ebooks initially became popular as the perfect format for information products being sold and delivered online, but they have now been recognized as a very effective resource for building traffic.

After you have written an ebook you can give it away to visitors as a reward for subscribing to your mailing list or newsletter. Your ebook for traffic building does not need to be the same number of pages as a full-length book. Many ebooks being used as free incentives are in the range of 12 to 25 pages.

You can even recruit related businesses and web sites to give away your ebook to their customers. The other site benefits because their visitors get something for free. And you benefit because you reach new readers with your information including a link to your web site.

Many ebook authors include a few advertising and affiliate links towards the end of their ebooks which can lead to additional revenue, especially if their free ebooks are heavily distributed.

Read more on Ebooks…


5. Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is any advertising method that propagates itself. It is built on the concept of a message spreading by ‘word of mouth’. Two examples of viral marketing online are “Tell a Friend” forms, and Viral Ebooks.

The idea with viral marketing is to induce visitors or readers to pass along your marketing message to other sites or people, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message’s visibility and response.

A “Tell a Friend” form is designed to get one person that you have already reached to recommend your site or service to a number of their friends. You can offer an incentive for them to make the recommendation, for example giving them a free report or ebook in return for recommending you to five friends.

To make a viral ebook, you use special tools to make your ebook rebrandable. In a rebrandable ebook, certain parts of your ebook are set up for customization. By doing this you enable your partners to insert their own business name, web site links, or even their own affiliate ID into your ebook. This gives them an additional incentive to pass on copies of it, ultimately helping you to promote your business and grow your traffic.

Read more on Viral Marketing…


6. Classified Advertising

Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers and magazines. Many online ezines and email newsletters offer classified advertising spots and advertising in these can be one of the best sources of targeted traffic.

The best traffic growth comes from carefully targeting your potential visitors and with classified advertising you have the ability to select newsletters and with an audience that closely resembles your own target audience.

With online classified advertising it is especially important to consider the position of the advertisement you are purchasing. An ad spot at the very top of an email newsletter will receive considerably more clicks than an ad spot further down the message.

And while we are on the subject of classified advertising, don’t dismiss offline classified advertising as irrelevant. It is possible to run a classified advertisement in an offline publication such as newspaper or carefully targeted magazine and get an excellent response of readers checking out your web site.

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7. Advertising Swaps

Once you have a mailing list of your own with several thousand subscribers consider setting up ‘ad swaps’ with other newsletters. Make a list of possible newsletters that would make good swapping targets. This list might include newsletters on the very same topic as yours, but it could also include publications on closely related topics.

A newsletter on copywriting, for example, might do an ad swap with another copywriting newsletter. Or they might swap with newsletters on related topics such as advertising, editing, and freelance writing.

Swapping ads one of the most effective low cost techniques for building traffic. There is only the opportunity cost of not having paid advertising in those spots of your newsletter. I can assure you that the traffic growth will be worth more in the long term than a one-off advertising payment from someone for a classified ad.

Read more on Advertising…

(Part 3 of this article continues on the next page…)